Open Parliament launches
Much talk online in the past few days about the launch of OpenParliament.ca by Michael Mulley. The sites creator suggests that “…too often, information that’s technically available is difficult to find and use. This site aims to make some of that information more easily accessible, and to encourage transparency in government.” He is right. And, he has a solution.
The site spun out of a self-described “frivolous” project of Mulley’s – a visualization engine that branched words from Hansard. Check it out here. It’s marginally entertaining.
The real magic happened when he took that data – and attached it to a search function and cross referenced it with media reports. The site still has a few bugs – if you catch one – please report it and help improve the site.
A live-bloggers dilemma
Kady O’Malley has made a name for herself as the go-to source for “inside the room” coverage of House of Commons committees and general-goings on. She is one of the few on the Hill to actively engage, follow up and reengage readers so this means as others drop readers and viewers, O’Malley has been building her community of commenters and readers. Yesterday, she faced a conundrum – three juicy meetings to live blog – she choose the untelevised/unstreamed “much-anticipated appearance” at the Military Police Complaints Commission. Does this overabundance of meetings mean the CBC will be looking for a back-up live blogger for busy days?
Reporters get plugs in the House
David Akin blogged a few days back that plugs have been installed in the media seating area above the Speaker – as an amateur historian of the buildings this probably fascinated me more than more. The Chamber has had over 50 minor renovations and at least four major restructuring. Notable moments in the House of Commons Chamber construction history: introduction of TV cameras lead to the ghastly yellow drapes (officially they are “Gold”); the installation of a hydraulic Speakers chair for Jeanne Sauvé; and the early 2000’s addition of seats making each of the desks about two inches smaller – causing a general uproar in the backbenchers (albeit a quiet uproar as most realized loudly complaining wasn’t going to be taken well at home).
Twitter moves to target users
Recently, Twitter introduced their first major step towards making money – an advertising system – while gently poking fun at their overall lack of a business model. It’s far too early to tell exactly what the micro-blogging outfit has in mind with their “priority Tweet” model. It will be interesting to watch roll out. Specifically I’m interested in the advocacy possibilities in the long term. The ability to micro-target based on already expressed interests in specific issues means you could – theoretically – motivate these Twitter users to act by donating micro amount, which as the service scales up could amount to a lot of digital coinage.
